• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.207-229
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• 2000

The lack of an understanding of the characteristics of a specific user group in computer-based information systems in libraries hinders library and information science professionals in grasping users' needs and making the best decisions when designing, acquiring, and managing information systems. The objective of this study was to provide information on the characteristics of specific user groups such as male ＆ female student groups. undergraduate ＆ graduate ones, Sciences and Humanities majored ones etc. This study also provides system developers (vendor) and adopters with users' needs and the merits or demerits of a specific system on the basis of students' evaluation. For the purpose, questionnaire was prepared and administered to Korean college students in the city of Taegu, Korea and adjacent area. One hundred and seventeen usable questionnaires were obtained and analyzed. These were analyzed using descriptive, inferential statistics. and SPSS software. The major findings of this study are: (1) Gender of the students affects the preference for the type of OPAC system selected more than that of academic level of study, age, and academic major; (2) The domestic in-house OPAC systems in Korea affect the user preference of system much more than that of foreign package ones; (3) System designers should prepare and use professional terms or abbreviations for system users more carefully, and explain them in detail; (4) Most of users preferred package OPAC systems to in-house ones, and preferred GUI systems to Telnet-based ones. Also, there was a significant difference between them. Conclusions are drawn from the findings in this paper, and recommendations are proposed when designing, adopting, or managing a new system. Topics for future studies on the characteristics of OPAC systems and their user are also suggested.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.155-174
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• 2010

In many cases, street vendors are means of living and/or a solution to unemployment for low income group. Street vendors have both of positive and negative effects on traditional market revitalization. This two-sided perspective of the vendors has produced different views of interests groups. In this study, the features of street vendors are examined to present related issues, and a survey result conducted on interests groups is presented to offer effective management measures. As traditional management about street vendors are focused on crackdown, relationship between street traders and government has been not very much mutually cooperative, and at times some traders organized groups who are against government policies. With the premise admitting street vendors as one element of distribution network, it is possible to access the management measures for street vendors in organizational, quantitative or qualitative perspectives. However, I believe it is not recommendable to enforce multi-perspective approach at a time. It is because street traders still have quite strong animosity against government policies. Therefore, serious misunderstanding and side-effects on our society could be brought if the government makes hasty and forcible attempts to legalize street vendors. In political position, overreaching actions of government could hardly produce positive results because policy making and its enforcement need each of timeliness. In a similar way, government's policies for street vendors need to come into effect gradually. Management measures for street vendors can come in short-, mid- and long-term. In short-term, government should try to reduce animosity of street traders along with minimizing institutional and political pressure on them. As a mid-term solution, plans to bring vendors over to institutional boundaries by improving them are required. Last but not least, in the long term, government should design policies which are to help street vendors settle down and maintain successfully in the boundaries. Besides, policies related to street vendors need to come in effect in a way that closely connected to interests groups and businesses because those policies would get involve many interests groups and businesses in diverse perspectives.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.195-220
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• 2018

In this study, we conducted an empirical analysis of the factors that affect the change of Bitcoin Closing Price. Previous studies have focused on the security of the block chain system, the economic ripple effects caused by the cryptocurrency, legal implications and the acceptance to consumer about cryptocurrency. In various area, cryptocurrency was studied and many researcher and people including government, regardless of country, try to utilize cryptocurrency and applicate to its technology. Despite of rapid and dramatic change of cryptocurrencies' price and growth of its effects, empirical study of the factors affecting the price change of cryptocurrency was lack. There were only a few limited studies, business reports and short working paper. Therefore, it is necessary to determine what factors effect on the change of closing Bitcoin price. For analysis, hypotheses were constructed from three dimensions of consumer, industry, and macroeconomics for analysis, and time series data were collected for variables of each dimension. Consumer variables consist of search traffic of Bitcoin, search traffic of bitcoin ban, search traffic of ransomware and search traffic of war. Industry variables were composed GPU vendors' stock price and memory vendors' stock price. Macro-economy variables were contemplated such as U.S. dollar index futures, FOMC policy interest rates, WTI crude oil price. Using above variables, we did times series regression analysis to find relationship between those variables and change of Bitcoin Closing Price. Before the regression analysis to confirm the relationship between change of Bitcoin Closing Price and the other variables, we performed the Unit-root test to verifying the stationary of time series data to avoid spurious regression. Then, using a stationary data, we did the regression analysis. As a result of the analysis, we found that the change of Bitcoin Closing Price has negative effects with search traffic of 'Bitcoin Ban' and US dollar index futures, while change of GPU vendors' stock price and change of WTI crude oil price showed positive effects. In case of 'Bitcoin Ban', it is directly determining the maintenance or abolition of Bitcoin trade, that's why consumer reacted sensitively and effected on change of Bitcoin Closing Price. GPU is raw material of Bitcoin mining. Generally, increasing of companies' stock price means the growth of the sales of those companies' products and services. GPU's demands increases are indirectly reflected to the GPU vendors' stock price. Making an interpretation, a rise in prices of GPU has put a crimp on the mining of Bitcoin. Consequently, GPU vendors' stock price effects on change of Bitcoin Closing Price. And we confirmed U.S. dollar index futures moved in the opposite direction with change of Bitcoin Closing Price. It moved like Gold. Gold was considered as a safe asset to consumers and it means consumer think that Bitcoin is a safe asset. On the other hand, WTI oil price went Bitcoin Closing Price's way. It implies that Bitcoin are regarded to investment asset like raw materials market's product. The variables that were not significant in the analysis were search traffic of bitcoin, search traffic of ransomware, search traffic of war, memory vendor's stock price, FOMC policy interest rates. In search traffic of bitcoin, we judged that interest in Bitcoin did not lead to purchase of Bitcoin. It means search traffic of Bitcoin didn't reflect all of Bitcoin's demand. So, it implies there are some factors that regulate and mediate the Bitcoin purchase. In search traffic of ransomware, it is hard to say concern of ransomware determined the whole Bitcoin demand. Because only a few people damaged by ransomware and the percentage of hackers requiring Bitcoins was low. Also, its information security problem is events not continuous issues. Search traffic of war was not significant. Like stock market, generally it has negative in relation to war, but exceptional case like Gulf war, it moves stakeholders' profits and environment. We think that this is the same case. In memory vendor stock price, this is because memory vendors' flagship products were not VRAM which is essential for Bitcoin supply. In FOMC policy interest rates, when the interest rate is low, the surplus capital is invested in securities such as stocks. But Bitcoin' price fluctuation was large so it is not recognized as an attractive commodity to the consumers. In addition, unlike the stock market, Bitcoin doesn't have any safety policy such as Circuit breakers and Sidecar. Through this study, we verified what factors effect on change of Bitcoin Closing Price, and interpreted why such change happened. In addition, establishing the characteristics of Bitcoin as a safe asset and investment asset, we provide a guide how consumer, financial institution and government organization approach to the cryptocurrency. Moreover, corroborating the factors affecting change of Bitcoin Closing Price, researcher will get some clue and qualification which factors have to be considered in hereafter cryptocurrency study.

• Proceedings of the CALSEC Conference
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• 1998.10b
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• pp.585-594
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• 1998

이미 전자상거래(EC)가 시간적ㆍ공간적 제약을 극복하고 국경을 초월한 새로운 교역시장 (Cyber Market)으로 등장하고 있으며 세계 자동차 산업은 표준부품의 공동개발 및 조달을 통해 중복투자 방지, 신차개발기간 단축 등 전략적 제휴를 통한 공조ㆍ공생체계 구축을 경쟁적으로 추진하고 있으나 국내 자동차업계는 제품개발, 부품조달, 판매 및 A/S 등 모든 부문을 독자적으로 해결함으로써 경쟁력 제고에 역행하는 경향이 있다. 또한 자동차 선진국과는 달리 국제 경쟁력 강화를 위한 CALS/EC 정보 기반 기술의 실질적인 활용이 미흡한 실정이다. 이러한 현실을 개선하기 위해 최근에 자동차공업협회(KAMA)와 현대, 대우, 기아 자동차 3사는 자동차 산업 CALS 추진 모델(Autopia)의 구축을 추진하고 있다. 추진 내용은 자동차 산업의 전체 Life-Cycle인 제품기획 단계부터 설계, 생산, 구매/조달, 고객지원 단계등 전 분야를 3개 부문(신차개발 프로세스, 구매조달 프로세스, 고객지원 서비스)으로 구분되어 있다. 신차개발 프로세스 부문은 차세대 PDM을 통하여 제품개발 사이클 단축을 추구하며 STEP을 통한 범용적 설계정보 교환 체계 구현이 기반이 된다. 또한 업무 흐름의 불투명성으로 인한 업무의 불균형 현상 타파와 설계 변경의 효율적 대응을 위하여 Workflow Management가 동시공학에 바탕을 두고 도입 적용되어야 한다. CAD 데이터를 비롯한 방대한 데이터의 효율적 관리를 위해서는 각 프로세스별로 독립된 정보를 체계적으로 관리할 수 있는 통합 환경(Integrated Data Environment)을 구성하여 각 프로세스에 걸쳐 데이터의 처리효율을 증대하여야 한다. 신차개발 부문의 핵심 기술이면서도 현업 적용이 초기 단계인 Digital Mockup과 Virtual Reality의 적용을 위해서는 3D 모델링이 기본 설계 방법으로 적용되어야 하며 이를 통한 어셈블리 및 부품구조의 관리가 이루어져야 한다. 구매조달 프로세스 부문은 자동차 업계의 공통 EDI/EC 네트워크 구축을 통한 경제적인 인프라 구조와 함께 부품 조달 체계의 간소화를 추구함으로써 자동차 산업의 대외 경쟁력 강화가 이루어 질 수 있다. 공개구매 시스템의 구축을 통하여 완성차별로 전속 계열화된 수직적인 부품조달 체계와 업체간 정보공유의 폐쇄성을 제거할 수 있고 완전 경쟁에 의한 우량 협력업체 발굴 기회의 확대가 용이하다. 이를 통하여 궁극적으로는 Global Vendor망의 구축이 실현될 것이다. 종합물류 시스템이 구현되면 판매는 경쟁체제, 물류는 공동화가 됨으로써 국가적으로 물류 비용의 절감이 엄청날 것으로 예상된다. 전국에 산재되어 있는 1,000여개의 대리점과 7,000여개의 정비업소를 대상으로 한 정비부품 EDI/EC 시스템이 구축되면 고객 서비스의 효율 향상과 함께 정비업소의 물류 및 재고 비용의 감소, 조달 속도의 향상, 조달 업무의 간소화 등의 효과를 보게 될 것이다. 고객지원 서비스는 정비정보 시스템, 산업정보 시스템, 쇼핑몰 시스템, 등록대행 시스템등을 통하여 일반 국민들이 피부로 느낄 수 있는 시스템으로 구축 되어야 할 것이다.

• Agribusiness and Information Management
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.1-11
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• 2017

Introduction: To analyze the impact of marketing losses on efficiency in transacting banana in Kurnool district of SRZ in Andhra Pradesh and to assess the opinions of the farmers on the constraints in transacting banana. Research back ground, Materials and Methods: The study relies exclusively on primary information obtained from the banana farmers of Kurnool District. Purposive sampling procedure was followed for the selection of the study area. Top two mandals in the district and top two villages in each mandal are selected in accordance with the area under cultivation of banana. Probability proportion to size was followed regarding the selection of sample farmers and accordingly 60 marginal, 37 small and 23 other farmers were selected and thereby, the total sample size was 120. Result and Discussion: Three marketing channels were identified in the marketing of banana in Kurnool district viz., Producer ${\rightarrow}$ Local-exporter ${\rightarrow}$ Wholesaler ${\rightarrow}$ Retailer ${\rightarrow}$ Consumer (Channel-I), Producer ${\rightarrow}$ Wholesaler ${\rightarrow}$ Cart-vendor ${\rightarrow}$ Consumer (Channel-II) and Producer ${\rightarrow}$ Juice-holder ${\rightarrow}$ Consumer (Channel-III). With the inclusion of marketing losses in the price spread analysis of banana in all the three channels, the marketing costs of all the intermediaries were increased and thereby, the farmer's share in consumer's rupee and Net Marketing Margins of the agencies are on the decline. So, without inclusion of marketing losses, the farmer's share in consumer's rupee and Net Marketing Margins of all the agencies are overvalued. The higher the marketing losses, the more is the negative impact on farmer's net selling price, net marketing margins of the intermediaries and marketing efficiency. The sample farmers are facing major problems in marketing of banana like frequent price fluctuations, unorganized marketing and lack of transportation facilities on priority basis. Suggestions: It is suggested to educate the farmers regarding the optimum maturity index for harvest, use of mechanical harvesters, proper placement of fruits during storage and ripening, better packaging and cushioning technologies to absorb shocks during transportation, strengthening of storage facilities and transport facilities, encourage co-operative marketing etc., to promote marketing efficiency of banana in the study area.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.65-73
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• 2017

Purpose - The Service Level Agreement which has been used in the IT information communication industry to maintain the level of service supplied by a vendor has been adopted in the service industry surrounding the airliners and airports. Considering that service quality is dependent on attitude of employees who are responsible to provide service, it is very important to understand what kinds of effects SLA(service level agreement) has on the attitude when SLA is applied to the service industry. SLA is an agreement between management authority and service providing contractor to make sure that certain level of service quality should be provided. For employees whose responsibilities are providing the service, SLA has both positive effects and negative effects. Negative side is that employees have to follow many irrigating complicated rules. On the other hand, the attribute of rules is that once one is become accustomed to them one may feel comfortable doing repeated same kinds of works, which is positive side for the workers. Research design, data, and methodology - We analyzed whether the SLA has moderating effects while service providers' job environment of outsourcing companies affects job satisfaction. Especially in the service industry, job satisfaction has great effects on productivity and efficiency. Results - The study results show the following. First, SLA has moderating effects while task performance environment affects treatment satisfaction. Second, SLA has moderating effects while task motivation environment affects treatment satisfaction. Third, SLA has moderating effects while physical work environment satisfaction affects treatment satisfaction. Fourth, on the other hand, the difficulties caused by SLA have moderating effects while the relationship among employees affects job dissatisfaction, which is negative side of SLA. From these results, we can tell that SLA has more positive moderating effects on treatment satisfaction on the whole. which results can be used to justify applying SLA to the service industry. Conclusions - In this study we analyzed the effects of SLA which have become more important in service industry nowadays on service providing employees. For managing side, the positive effects of SLA have to be emphasized while the negative effects should be avoided or minimized.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.5-9
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• 2014

Purpose - The purpose of this study was to compare and contrast the applicability and effectiveness of both teukyakmeip contracts of Korea and consignment contracts of the United State to demonstrate the effectiveness and practicability of teukyakmeip in Korea. These are popular contract agreements between large retailers and their suppliers and vendors. In recent years, teukyakmeip was critically examined and scrutinized by the politicians, the media, and the public of Korea. Consequently, this paper focusesheavily on identifying and analyzing different types of contract agreements between large retailers and their suppliers that currently exist in Korea and compares and contrasts those analyzed contract agreements with teukyakmeip. The article also comparesand contrasts teukyakmeip with the consignment agreements of the United States to identify similarities and differences. Research design, data, and methodology - This study is a descriptive study and has used personal interviews to collect and analyze the data. This study also fits the definition of the case study wherein it is entirely focused on investigating a real-life event: analyzing and examining contract agreements in the distribution industry. Both randomly selected management and vendor representatives from the three major department stores, Lotte, Hyundai, and Shinsegae, in Korea were interviewed between July and September 2013. The analysis of the consignment agreement was conducted based on existing secondary data. Results - Although the evidence of the abuse of teukyakmeip and consignment by large retailers from both countries clearly exists, the findings suggestthat both contract agreements would remain as the most relevant and effective legal contracts between large retailers and their suppliers. Based on the comparisonanalysis of teukyakmeip and consignment, both contracts indicated that suppliers are fully responsible for inventory and inventory management. If sales person is necessary for promoting special product, then suppliers are responsible for providing a sales person and their wages under both contracts. However, American department stores, those located outside urban area, tend to use their own employees to perform special product and sales promotion. The retailersare fully responsible for any interior or floor design or redesign of the retail store to accommodate the products from vendors under consignment; however, both suppliers and retailers share the cost of designing and redesigning the interior to accommodate vendors'products under teukyakmeip. Suppliers are responsible for pricing and supplying the quantity of the products under both agreements. Both contracts allow special sales commission as long as vendors agreed. Vendors use this special commissionto introduce their new products or apply market penetration strategy. Conclusions -The findings of this study showed the changing pattern of contract agreements between large retailers and their suppliers from both countries. Furthermore, this study evidently generated policy implications of teukyakmeip which recently became the major social issue in Korea and attracted many policymakers to gain political points by criticizing the teukyakmeip system and the large retailers. The findings of the study would be valuable to policy makers in making appropriate decisions and to large retailers and vendors in making beneficial agreements. The major implication of this study is that teukyakmeip and consignment agreements include very similar or almost identical characteristics, and they are popular among department stores and suppliers. The issue of abolishing teukyakmeip in Korea needs to be examined cautiously because teukyakmeip is the best one available at the moment, and the study suggests that no one benefits from abolishing this system.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.115-137
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• 2010

Information technology (IT) outsourcing, the use of a third-party vendor to provide IT services, started in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Korea, and has increased rapidly since 2000. Recently, firms have increased their efforts to capture greater value from IT outsourcing. To date, there have been a large number of studies on IT outsourcing. Most prior studies on IT outsourcing have focused on outsourcing practices and decisions, and little attention has been paid to objectively measuring the value of IT outsourcing. In addition, studies that examined the performance of IT outsourcing have mainly relied on anecdotal evidence or practitioners' perceptions. Our study examines the contribution of IT outsourcing to economic growth in Korean industries over the 1990 to 2007 period, using a production function framework and a panel data set for 54 industries constructed from input-output tables, fixed-capital formation tables, and employment tables. Based on the framework and estimation procedures that Han, Kauffman and Nault (2010) used to examine the economic impact of IT outsourcing in U.S. industries, we evaluate the impact of IT outsourcing on output and productivity in Korean industries. Because IT outsourcing started to grow at a significantly more rapid pace in 2000, we compare the impact of IT outsourcing in pre- and post-2000 periods. Our industry-level panel data cover a large proportion of Korean economy-54 out of 58 Korean industries. This allows us greater opportunity to assess the impacts of IT outsourcing on objective performance measures, such as output and productivity. Using IT outsourcing and IT capital as our primary independent variables, we employ an extended Cobb-Douglas production function in which both variables are treated as factor inputs. We also derive and estimate a labor productivity equation to assess the impact of our IT variables on labor productivity. We use data from seven years (1990, 1993, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007) for which both input-output tables and fixed-capital formation tables are available. Combining the input-output tables and fixed-capital formation tables resulted in 54 industries. IT outsourcing is measured as the value of computer-related services purchased by each industry in a given year. All the variables have been converted to 2000 Korean Won using GDP deflators. To calculate labor hours, we use the average work hours for each sector provided by the OECD. To effectively control for heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation present in our dataset, we use the feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) procedures. Because the AR1 process may be industry-specific (i.e., panel-specific), we consider both common AR1 and panel-specific AR1 (PSAR1) processes in our estimations. We also include year dummies to control for year-specific effects common across industries, and sector dummies (as defined in the GDP deflator) to control for time-invariant sector-specific effects. Based on the full sample of 378 observations, we find that a 1% increase in IT outsourcing is associated with a 0.012~0.014% increase in gross output and a 1% increase in IT capital is associated with a 0.024~0.027% increase in gross output. To compare the contribution of IT outsourcing relative to that of IT capital, we examined gross marginal product (GMP). The average GMP of IT outsourcing was 6.423, which is substantially greater than that of IT capital at 2.093. This indicates that on average if an industry invests KRW 1 millon, it can increase its output by KRW 6.4 million. In terms of the contribution to labor productivity, we find that a 1% increase in IT outsourcing is associated with a 0.009~0.01% increase in labor productivity while a 1% increase in IT capital is associated with a 0.024~0.025% increase in labor productivity. Overall, our results indicate that IT outsourcing has made positive and economically meaningful contributions to output and productivity in Korean industries over the 1990 to 2007 period. The average GMP of IT outsourcing we report about Korean industries is 1.44 times greater than that in U.S. industries reported in Han et al. (2010). Further, we find that the contribution of IT outsourcing has been significantly greater in the 2000~2007 period during which the growth of IT outsourcing accelerated. Our study provides implication for policymakers and managers. First, our results suggest that Korean industries can capture further benefits by increasing investments in IT outsourcing. Second, our analyses and results provide a basis for managers to assess the impact of investments in IT outsourcing and IT capital in an objective and quantitative manner. Building on our study, future research should examine the impact of IT outsourcing at a more detailed industry level and the firm level.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.21-38
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• 2012

Until recently, successful implementation of ERP systems has been a popular topic among ERP researchers, who have attempted to identify its various contributing factors. None of these efforts, however, explicitly recognize the need to identify disparities that can exist between organizational information requirements and ERP systems. Since ERP systems are in fact "packages" -that is, software programs developed by independent software vendors for sale to organizations that use them-they are designed to meet the general needs of numerous organizations, rather than the unique needs of a particular organization, as is the case with custom-developed software. By adopting standard packages, organizations can substantially reduce many of the potential implementation risks commonly associated with custom-developed software. However, it is also true that the nature of the package itself could be a risk factor as the features and functions of the ERP systems may not completely comply with a particular organization's informational requirements. In this study, based on the organizational memory mismatch perspective that was derived from organizational memory theory and cognitive dissonance theory, we define the nature of disparities, which we call "mismatches," and propose that the mismatch between organizational information requirements and ERP systems is one of the primary determinants in the successful implementation of ERP systems. Furthermore, we suggest that customization efforts as a coping strategy for mismatches can play a significant role in increasing the possibilities of success. In order to examine the contention we propose in this study, we employed a survey-based field study of ERP project team members, resulting in a total of 77 responses. The results of this study show that, as anticipated from the organizational memory mismatch perspective, the mismatch between organizational information requirements and ERP systems makes a significantly negative impact on the implementation success of ERP systems. This finding confirms our hypothesis that the more mismatch there is, the more difficult successful ERP implementation is, and thus requires more attention to be drawn to mismatch as a major failure source in ERP implementation. This study also found that as a coping strategy on mismatch, the effects of customization are significant. In other words, utilizing the appropriate customization method could lead to the implementation success of ERP systems. This is somewhat interesting because it runs counter to the argument of some literature and ERP vendors that minimized customization (or even the lack thereof) is required for successful ERP implementation. In many ERP projects, there is a tendency among ERP developers to adopt default ERP functions without any customization, adhering to the slogan of "the introduction of best practices." However, this study asserts that we cannot expect successful implementation if we don't attempt to customize ERP systems when mismatches exist. For a more detailed analysis, we identified three types of mismatches-Non-ERP, Non-Procedure, and Hybrid. Among these, only Non-ERP mismatches (a situation in which ERP systems cannot support the existing information needs that are currently fulfilled) were found to have a direct influence on the implementation of ERP systems. Neither Non-Procedure nor Hybrid mismatches were found to have significant impact in the ERP context. These findings provide meaningful insights since they could serve as the basis for discussing how the ERP implementation process should be defined and what activities should be included in the implementation process. They show that ERP developers may not want to include organizational (or business processes) changes in the implementation process, suggesting that doing so could lead to failed implementation. And in fact, this suggestion eventually turned out to be true when we found that the application of process customization led to higher possibilities of failure. From these discussions, we are convinced that Non-ERP is the only type of mismatch we need to focus on during the implementation process, implying that organizational changes must be made before, rather than during, the implementation process. Finally, this study found that among the various customization approaches, bolt-on development methods in particular seemed to have significantly positive effects. Interestingly again, this finding is not in the same line of thought as that of the vendors in the ERP industry. The vendors' recommendations are to apply as many best practices as possible, thereby resulting in the minimization of customization and utilization of bolt-on development methods. They particularly advise against changing the source code and rather recommend employing, when necessary, the method of programming additional software code using the computer language of the vendor. As previously stated, however, our study found active customization, especially bolt-on development methods, to have positive effects on ERP, and found source code changes in particular to have the most significant effects. Moreover, our study found programming additional software to be ineffective, suggesting there is much difference between ERP developers and vendors in viewpoints and strategies toward ERP customization. In summary, mismatches are inherent in the ERP implementation context and play an important role in determining its success. Considering the significance of mismatches, this study proposes a new model for successful ERP implementation, developed from the organizational memory mismatch perspective, and provides many insights by empirically confirming the model's usefulness.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.151-171
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• 2014

Firms today have sought management effectiveness and efficiency utilizing information technologies (IT). Numerous firms are outsourcing specific information systems functions to cope with their short of information resources or IT experts, or to reduce their capital cost. Recently, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) as a new type of information system has become one of the powerful outsourcing alternatives. SaaS is software deployed as a hosted and accessed over the internet. It is regarded as the idea of on-demand, pay-per-use, and utility computing and is now being applied to support the core competencies of clients in areas ranging from the individual productivity area to the vertical industry and e-commerce area. In this study, therefore, we seek to quantify the value that SaaS has on business performance by examining the relationships among firm strategies, SaaS technology maturity, and business performance of SaaS providers. We begin by drawing from prior literature on SaaS, technology maturity and firm strategy. SaaS technology maturity is classified into three different phases such as application service providing (ASP), Web-native application, and Web-service application. Firm strategies are manipulated by the low-cost strategy and differentiation strategy. Finally, we considered customer acquisition as a business performance. In this sense, specific objectives of this study are as follows. First, we examine the relationships between customer acquisition performance and both low-cost strategy and differentiation strategy of SaaS providers. Secondly, we investigate the mediating and moderating effects of SaaS technology maturity on those relationships. For this purpose, study collects data from the SaaS providers, and their line of applications registered in the database in CNK (Commerce net Korea) in Korea using a questionnaire method by the professional research institution. The unit of analysis in this study is the SBUs (strategic business unit) in the software provider. A total of 199 SBUs is used for analyzing and testing our hypotheses. With regards to the measurement of firm strategy, we take three measurement items for differentiation strategy such as the application uniqueness (referring an application aims to differentiate within just one or a small number of target industry), supply channel diversification (regarding whether SaaS vendor had diversified supply chain) as well as the number of specialized expertise and take two items for low cost strategy like subscription fee and initial set-up fee. We employ a hierarchical regression analysis technique for testing moderation effects of SaaS technology maturity and follow the Baron and Kenny's procedure for determining if firm strategies affect customer acquisition through technology maturity. Empirical results revealed that, firstly, when differentiation strategy is applied to attain business performance like customer acquisition, the effects of the strategy is moderated by the technology maturity level of SaaS providers. In other words, securing higher level of SaaS technology maturity is essential for higher business performance. For instance, given that firms implement application uniqueness or a distribution channel diversification as a differentiation strategy, they can acquire more customers when their level of SaaS technology maturity is higher rather than lower. Secondly, results indicate that pursuing differentiation strategy or low cost strategy effectively works for SaaS providers' obtaining customer, which means that continuously differentiating their service from others or making their service fee (subscription fee or initial set-up fee) lower are helpful for their business success in terms of acquiring their customers. Lastly, results show that the level of SaaS technology maturity mediates the relationships between low cost strategy and customer acquisition. That is, based on our research design, customers usually perceive the real value of the low subscription fee or initial set-up fee only through the SaaS service provide by vender and, in turn, this will affect their decision making whether subscribe or not.